YouTube Now the Third Largest Country in the World

Misleading headlines all over the web are claiming that the video sharing site YouTube is now the third largest country in the world. Despite the fact that it’s not actually a country at all.

What they mean to say is that the immensely popular site now has more than one billion visitors per month – which in nation terms means that it has more users than any country (barring China and India) has people. This, unsurprisingly, marks out YouTube as a huge online success story, and it’s partially down to the site’s owners. Google.

When the search giant bought YouTube back in 2006 (for a staggering £1.2 billion), the site was seeing around 50 million users a month. This number has now skyrocketed past the one billion mark, thanks to a canny integration and advertising plan. And it’s paying dividends as brands flock to the site:

“In the last eight years you’ve come to YouTube to watch, share and fall in love with videos from all over the world. Tens of thousands of partners have created channels that have found and built businesses for passionate, engaged audiences. Advertisers have taken notice: all of the Ad Age Top 100 brands are now running campaigns on YouTube.

If YouTube were a country, we’d be the third largest in the world after China and India.”

One out of every two internet user is now visiting YouTube regularly. And we won’t be surprised to see this number rise in the future.

The Ten Most Popular YouTube Videos of All Time

If there’s one industry (aside from the tech industry) that’s benefited from YouTube’s meteoric rise, it’s the music industry. 9 of the top 10 YouTube videos are music videos, with the recent global phenomenon Gangnam Style topping the list: